A Mirror Cracked: Ten Keys to the Landscape of the Calumet Region

Abstract

Southeast Chicago's Calumet region is many things to many people. Home to wetlands and wildlife, mills and millgate communities, landfills and brownfields, it seems to defy easy characterization. This paper argues that it is the jarring juxtaposition of each of these features that best reflects the area. Ten interpretive “keys” -or significant landscape-shaping elements form an interpretive frame.